For someone who claims in his sleeve notes (or as he in that ever so
pretentious manner likes to call them essays) that he loves Christ, "18"
is an album that has been made with the full knowledge that he has sold
his soul to the devil. If "Play" was an album that screamed "coffee table
dance music for people who quite like M People and Jamiroquai" then "18"
takes it all a step further down the wrong path...and in the process makes
his previous work sound like the most revolutionary dance record since
an imaginary collaboration between Aphex Twin and Alec Empire. What makes
this album even more laughable is the fact that these 18 tracks are considered
the best out of an alleged 150 tracks written over the past 12 months.

"We Are All Made Of Stars" throws us off the track with its 80s influences
worn on its sleeve and the bubbling bass insistent in the background. Its
one of two tracks where Moby's forgets about the advertising revenue and
starts to make music simply for the love of music. The other track is "Jam
For The Ladies" featuring Angie Stone and MC Lyte on vocals and taking
us back to that old skool hip-hop flavour.

Moby has now become the soundtrack to the upwardly mobile middle England
New Labour voting Friends Big Brother Survivor Reality TV watching Dido
loving bores that frequent cafe bars form cheese and tomato wraps with
the vague notion that they are being in someway continental. Its sort of
aspirational clap track that filled the likes of "Play" and on "In This
World" he even has the audacity to use the same "Lordy" refrain as used
before.

When you consider that this guitars has made a punk rock thrash album
in the form of "Animal Rights" and some of the best techno records ever
made its a shame to see him throw away the innovation in the name of the
dollar. He was in a position to truly make a revolutionary album after
"Play", but unfortunately the true Moby fans are going to have to ride
the storm until we get the album we finally deserve.